Glistening blue waters scattered with underwater caves invite visitors to go for a swim. Ginnie Springs serves as a day trip getaway for UF students, yet, behind the scenes, millions of gallons of water are being pumped underground to fill plastic water bottles in a plant behind the springs.
On Feb. 23, water management officials unanimously approved a permit for Seven Springs Water to pump around one million gallons a day from Ginnie Springs for bottled water.
“Withdrawals of water for bottled water are really a very tiny sliver of what we pump from the ground,” Executive Director of Florida Defenders of the Environment Jim Gross said. “All of our water supply comes from groundwater in Florida, so this particular operation [of bottling water] comes from different aquifers.”
The Floridan aquifer provides the majority of Florida’s water supply and is the source of most of the large springs in the state, including Ginnie Springs. The Ginnie Springs Group (Ginnie Spring; Devil Spring System: Devil’s Eye and Devil’s Ear; Dogwood Spring; Twin Spring; and Deer Spring) contributes nearly 10% of the total flow of the Santa Fe River, which flows into the Suwannee River.
With the Suwannee River Management District’s approval of the permit, Seven Springs can pump as much as 984,000 gallons of water each day for the next five years.
“The Santa Fe River [has been seen] with declining flows,” Gross said. “We are seeing the stress of those systems right now.”
The permit already existed and was renewed in this recent vote. According to Gross, the company received a permit with a decreased amount of water allowed to be pumped. Companies like Seven Springs tend to request more water than they actually need because they project what their water needs will be in the future while filing for such permits.
With the Florida Water Resources Act of 1972, water rights were no longer, and if an entity wanted to use water that belongs to the people of Florida, they need to obtain a permit and demonstrate three things: reasonable beneficial use, use does not interfere with existing legal uses of water, and use is consistent with the public interest.
This is referred to as the three-prong approach. The FDE filed a lawsuit opposing the Seven Springs/Nestle bottled water permit claiming that its renewal has no public interest.
Although benefits of water bottling plants are not necessarily relevant to the individual Floridian or the public at large — and thus failing to meet the third condition of the three-prong approach— having easy access to permits encourages companies to relocate to the Sunshine State.
Established by Florida law, minimum flows and levels (MFLs) are required to prevent harm as a consequence of water withdrawals.
“Ever since 2011 with Gov. Rick Scott, we came to a new understanding about MFLs,” Gross said.
Even if bodies of water are not meeting their MFLs, permits are still given.
“Bottled water is a contentious issue because it is not exceptionally good for the environment with all the plastic bottles produced,” Gross said. “Recycling for those plastics has gotten to be a problem recently too.”
Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA), which purchases the water from Seven Springs for bottling, wrote in a statement that “NWNA will continue to take great care to help ensure the amount of water we purchase from Seven Springs is sustainable and will not adversely impact the springs or surrounding wetlands.”
Although the projected amount of water to be pumped underground for drinking water is minimal in comparison to water pumped for agricultural use such as irrigation, additional stress on Florida’s aquifers negatively impacts MFLs and threatens the clean drinking supply.
Underground water withdrawal may be out of sight, yet it remains an ongoing debate and finds itself on the shelves of grocery stores across the state and nation.